


Vanilla Scent

by ulmo80



Series: Grey Tales [3]
Category: My Crazy Ramblings
Genre: Baking, Chocolate, Cookies, One Shot, Single Parents, Vanilla
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-06 15:42:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16835608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ulmo80/pseuds/ulmo80
Summary: The ringing of the phone received him as he crossed the kitchen threshold.





	Vanilla Scent

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CaptainTarthister](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainTarthister/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Aroma de Vainilla](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15671523) by [ulmo80](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ulmo80/pseuds/ulmo80). 



> Dear CaptainTarthister, though this story is not fandom-related, I hope you enjoy it xD...
> 
> This is a translation, it is not beta-read. English is not my first language. All mistakes are mine.

  
[](https://imgur.com/S4hJ7OZ)  
  


The ringing of the phone received him as he crossed the kitchen threshold. In the living-room, the annoying singsong theme from his daughter’s favorite television show competed with it; he couldn’t yet fathom how the girl, who still missed the line when coloring, had managed to download the melody and set it as the cellphone ringtone.

“Where had you been? Why didn’t you pick up?” he was taken aback by his brother’s not at all normal panic tone before he could utter a word.

The cellphone stopped ringing.

“I went to the Lake Walk to jog… What happened to Ceci?” his imagination started to play, without truce, the worst scenarios ( _after what had happened, it could be really creative_ ). The previous night he had left the child at his brother’s house, in a sleepover for her cousin’s birthday celebration; the last time he had seen her, she was submerged in a deafening pillow fight with half a dozen other girls. 

“Nothing, she’s okay. Did you see the news?”

“I’m just getting in.”

He only got silence from the other side of the line. Silence that didn’t inspire him trust.

“Are you still there?”

“Put channel 15,” his brother replied after a couple of seconds. Anxiety was still shading his voice.

He looked for the TV remote. It was on the island counter, in the center, next to the cookies.

Then he noted the change.

Despite the girl’s absence, he had got up early. After having breakfast, he had picked up stuffed animals and dolls scattered all over the living-room, remains of the last tea party, and had taken them to the little one’s room, two doors before the master room ( _he hadn’t re-entered there, he kept it locked_ ). It was Saturday, there were still hours left to go for the girl and, having nothing to do, he had decided to go jogging, but not before baking a tray of Ceci’s favorite cookies. He had left them on the island counter.

They were of chocolate with peanut chips. 

Circular.

The ones he saw that moment were sprinkled with powder sugar.

They were heart-shaped.

He didn’t need to take one to know they smelled like vanilla ( _the scent of his nightmares_ ).

Holding still the phone against his ear, he took the remote with his free hand and turned the TV located in that room on. The fingers refused to obey, obstructing his intention to get the channel.

“Call now. Our operators are waiting…”

“What’s up, doc?”

“… I lost 30 pounds…”

“… they are considered dangerous. If you see them, please, don’t approach. Contact immediately with the emergency lines…”

Phone and remote slipped from his grip. On the screen, she smiled ( _her face didn’t reveal anything of what she was capable of_ ).

“I’m going there… Keep calm…” he heard his brother’s voice from a place near his feet, followed by a door being slammed and the whining of a motor being turned on and accelerated without contemplation.

He didn’t know how but, before he was aware, he was sitting on the floor. Clamps pressed his chest. He tried to breath, but the puffs of air refused to fill his lungs. Nausea joined the party as a last minute guest. His left hand went direct to the scar in his neck ( _he tried to stop the bleeding_ ).

“… it should not finance the Government with money emissions and should not intervene…” The news anchor was commenting another story ( _the sorrowful whining of a baby, his baby of only months, was claiming for his attention_ ).

His eyes were going from one side to the other, trying to guess from where the danger would come ( _blood splatters, his blood, polluted the pristine beige of the walls_ ).

Suddenly, an object caught his attention; a glimpse of sanity in the middle of the desperation that was taking hold of him.

One of the dolls of Ceci’s.

It was between the legs of the stool where he seated the girl at meal times.

He had bought it just as he left the hospital ( _he was discharged after three months_ ). It was made of rag, yellow dress, blue yarn hair, freckled face and huge eyes made with black buttons.

He kept his sight fixated on the doll, his anchor inside the tempest. His breathing started to normalize, the oppression in his chest was decreasing bit by bit.

Feeling himself again, he crawled towards the doll, stumbled until he was standing and put it on the island counter. After a second of doubt, he took the tray with the cookies and threw it in the trash bin.

“… temperatures will continued descending…” the newscast kept on, as if they hadn’t destroyed the peace he had achieved after a lot of effort. He crouched to pick remote and phone up, the last was emitting the interrupted call beep. He turned the TV off, pushed end call and put both dispositives next to the doll.

Then, he opened the cabinet over the refrigerator and moved the objects there until he found the one he wanted.

He climbed the stairs to the upper floor with slow but sure steps.

At the end of the corridor, the master bedroom door was ajar.

Before entering, his last thought was to Ceci.

“Hello, love.” She ( _his ex-wife, the mother of his daughter’s_ ), lying on the window seat cushions, bitted a cookie. The sweet vanilla scent that always accompanied her flood the place.

A car skidded in front of the house.

In the living-room, the annoying singsong theme from his daughter’s favorite television show started calling him from the cellphone.

In the kitchen, the phone started ringing.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is, as I like to call it, “My Beautiful Bastard.” You had no idea how much I fought to finally get, I don’t know if what I wanted when I started it, but a good result. I hoped you had liked as much as I did.
> 
> Point for whom identify the doll xD...
> 
> Oh Captain, my Captain. About a week ago, I started reading The Lannisters are Coming and you can’t imagine how I laugh when I saw your use of the vanilla scent. As you could see, it has the exact opposite effect in our male leads xD… Funny how different use and interpretation you can give to an object or, in this case, a scent. I found the prompt for this story in Stephen King’s On Writing about ten years ago. He proposed to take a tabloid news about a domestic violence case where the man was imprisoned but a year later he escaped, and then you got to use your imagination to fill the blanks; but it had a twist, the one our dear GRRM likes to do: you had to switch genders. So, this is what I got at the end. I struggled with it, a lot, but the thing I had established since the beginning was the title and the effect the vanilla had on my character.


End file.
